Winter and Summer

“The sky is dreary and rainy,
And the wind makes a restless moan—
And the yellow leaves drift and wander,
And the songs and the summer are gone.”

Not so, for the gardens are glowing
In summer beyond the sea,
In the glory of songs and of flowers,
Whilst here it is winter for thee.

And land after land wakes in sunshine,
And the grass and the lilies upspring,
And the children shout loud in the meadows,
And madly the wild birds sing.

There is never an end of the summer,
For round the great world it goes;
There are somewhere the fields of narcissus,
And somewhere the sweet red rose.

“Why can I not follow the summer,
Far over the hills and the sea,
And be always for ever and ever
Wherever the summer may be?”

O child, there is summer for ever,
Here under the wintry sky,
Where the Lord is the light and the glory,
And His lambs in His pastures lie.

When the snow and the wild sleet are driven
Far over the lonely mere,
There is summer beyond all the summers,
Where Jesus the Lord is near.


Source: Hymns of Ter Steegen and Others (Second Series) #145